WarWizard-anybody ever play this? 1994

August 10th, 2009, 03:40

This is an extremely old game from Brad Quaid and Microgenesis. The "guess this game" thread made me look at my old floppies and I found that I had the registered version of this game. I had to download the shareware version off the net, but once I did so, the floppy re-registered the game for me. It kinda looks like Ultima V level graphics and I don't have a clue what I'm doing in the game.

Today, the game is mostly unknown except to a few fans and appears impossible to find anywhere on the net. Even the official site, which became unavailable from September 2007 (possibly connected to Sony Online Entertainment's takeover of Sigil Games Online on 15 May, 2007), offered only a shareware version of the game for download. According to Brad McQuaid, the full version seems to be misplaced and nowhere to be found.

Oh, and better make a backup copy of that floppy. Who knows, maybe it's the last one in existence.

-- "Mystery is important. To know everything, to know the whole truth, is dull. There is no magic in that. Magic is not knowing, magic is wondering about what and how and where." ~ Cortez, from The Longest Journey

-- “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Well, I've got the floppy and a hard drive copy. I'll go ahead and copy it to a usb-drive too. Okay, did that, and I copied it right before running the registration file. I emailed Brad McQuaid with a zipped copy and told him to come visit the Watch. I think that's as much as I can do unless you guys have other thoughts.

If he gives me permission, I'll zip the full version and make it available. IIRC, it's a big, detailed game with a deep combat mechanic. You can target different body areas, different weapons do different types of damage, etc.

Very thoughtful of you. And remember, even the smallest nut can change the course of the future. If he doesn't reply within a couple weeks, you might want to send a new mail without the attachment, just in case the other mail got caught in a spam filter.

HerrSchnuff: Heh. Sometimes it's good to have hard copies though.

-- "Mystery is important. To know everything, to know the whole truth, is dull. There is no magic in that. Magic is not knowing, magic is wondering about what and how and where." ~ Cortez, from The Longest Journey

@JDR13, Dang! I didn't think of that I've been playing it the last couple evenings and it's got that "toughness" factor going pretty good. A low-level party can and will die if they wander off the roads or too far from home base. It's fun to aim for the legs of likely treasure bearers so that they can't run away.

I never heard back from the original owner, so I wonder if it'd be okay to make the game available? If it's legal, does anyone besides me have any interest in a mid-90's crpg that wasn't widely played?

WarWizard is basically a quest to retrieve 8 items before facing Foozle. Those 8 items are buried in dungeons and sometimes you might have to enter multiple dungeons to retrieve one item. I'm enjoying it, but it's extremely limited in some ways compared to today's games. There's no automap, you can only memorize 5 spells/character and must revisit town to re-memorize spells. Your characters can only carry 10 items in their backpack and everyone has a pretty strict weight limit. I kinda like the old-school flavor of the game and am having a good time with it.

I've emailed the guy asking for permission to put it up on the Abandonware sites, or to put it on a file sharing site and then place a link here for anyone who's interested. If he doesn't respond with a negative in the next day or so, I'll put up a link, if that's okay with the RPGWatch crew. Not sure about abandonware policy around here…

Hey Guys, Brad emailed me back with his blessing for sharing WarWizard:

that's fine, go ahead and make it available anywhere you want. ----------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid ----------------------------------------- On Aug 18, 2009, at 8:12 AM, crpgnut wrote: > Hey Brad, > > I've got a few guys on the RPGWatch forums who are interested in playing the full version of WarWizard. If you don't want me to make the game freely available, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll put it up on a file sharing website, and send them a link. Also, let me know if I can post the game on the Abandonware type of sites. > >

Now that I've gotten permission, who would like a copy of the game? I'm not a big-time poster so if someone here has an "in" with one of the Abandonware sites, Brad is cool with me sharing the game to anyone who wants it. I'm having a good time with it, but I'll admit it is for people who are very unpicky about graphics. See txa's link for screenshots.

Yep, Dosbox .72 or .73 both run it fine. I use D-Fend reloaded and just use the vanilla settings, point to the game directory and fire it up. Shoot me an email to my username here at good ole yahoo DOT com and I'll reply with a zipped copy of the game. Hopefully somebody will host it at an Abandonware site soon. It's small. The whole thing might be 3-4 megs